Past IJET

IJET-29 in Osaka

""Rethinking the role of human linguists ― 言葉に命を吹き込む""

The organizing committee of IJET-29 Osaka would like to thank everyone who attended the hugely successful conference and associated events in Osaka between Friday June 29th and Sunday July 1st 2018, fueled by the unofficial Pre-IJET Party on Thursday evening. We hope that there was something for everyone, starting with the SIG sessions, opening ceremony and keynote speech at the historic Osaka City Central Public Hall on Friday, followed by the official conference eve party at Lagunaveil on Friday evening; there were dozens of presentations, lectures, panels and discussions at Grand Front on Saturday and Sunday, and the networking banquet on Saturday evening at New Hankyu Hotel Osaka with the amazing Gagaku performance by Tennoji Gakuso and beautiful Fukumusume girls from Imamiya Ebisu Shrine.

We hope all attendees had a great time, caught up with old friends and made plenty of new ones, got to attend the sessions they wanted to, learnt something new and took away something meaningful, ate and drank and talked and shared to your heart's content, and enjoyed yourselves immensely here in our beautiful, exciting, historic city. Thank you especially to those who came from the far-flung corners of the world - many attendees came from all over Europe, the USA and Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, as well as other Asian countries and from within Japan. Osaka is a fantastic place, and we hope you all come back again!

We would like to extend our thanks to all the speakers whose presentations and discussions were so interesting, informative, educational and inspiring. Your presence here was greatly appreciated; many sessions were crowded with some having standing room only, and thought-provoking discussions continued into the corridors afterwards. We are sure everyone who attended found plenty to fill their time with, and the numbers show the interest in your sessions: over the course of the weekend, more than 2,500 people attended a total of 48 sessions on Saturday and Sunday. We would especially like to thank our speakers from fields other than translating and interpreting, who shared their expert knowledge with us on this occasion. In particular, we were honored to have Professor Murata from Osaka University as our keynote speaker to mark the opening of IJET-29 with the keynote speech on Tekijuku and Ogata Koan. We appreciate the kind cooperation from the Japan Patent Office and INPIT (National Center for Industrial Property Information and Training)-KANSAI at Grand Front Osaka for sending the top-ranked Chief Examiner Mr. Takiguchi for the Panel discussion with Attorney Mr. Yabe and Patent Attorney Mr. Horn. We also thank Professor Tabata, Professor Okamoto, Dr. Yoshida, Dr. Boku, Mr. Miyata, and Attorney Okuda for introducing the cutting-edges of their fields to us. We also extend our thanks to WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) for kindly sending their officers to this IJET again for a session tailored to cover beginners to veterans.

We would like to thank our generous sponsors: SunFlare Co. Ltd.; NLG GmbH; ASCA Corporation; International Medical Translation Service Inc.; NT Chougenbou's Medical Translation Taskforce; Honyaku Center Inc.; Forte Inc.; Translation Business Systems Japan; Memsource a.s.; NIT INC.; Simul International, Inc.; World Connection SARL; SLD plc; MedicaLingual Inc.; Language Automation Inc.; and Akiko Nagashima-Detke. Most of you have been long time supporters of IJETs, enabling us to keep holding regular IJETs for many years. Thanks to your support, IJETs have been improving consistently and getting better every time. We also thank SunFlare for the beautiful flower arrangements for our networking party, and Osaka Convention and Tourism Bureau for arranging the Fukumusume girls to commemorate the party. We appreciate CAIS (Center for Advancement of Interpreting Skills) for mutual PR cooperation with us. Finally, we would like to thank JTF for their supports for IJETs.

We would also like to express our appreciation to the staff at the venues for assisting in the smooth-running of the event: Osaka City Central Public Hall, Grand Front Osaka, New Hankyu Hotel Osaka, and Lagunaveil, as well as Tekijuku Centre, which reopened early after the earthquake two weeks ago, especially for IJET's Tekijuku Visit. Thanks also to the volunteers who gave their time and energy to assist in fetching, carrying and guiding throughout the weekend. We appreciate Kansai College of Business and Languages and International Language Centre for sending their students to assist us. We would also like to thank all the people who helped us by designing our website, logo, bags, happi coats and fans, which were so beautiful, and the designing company which has done a tremendous job in such a limited time. You have all contributed to the success of IJET-29 Osaka.

Thanks also from everyone on the Organizing Committee go to the JAT board and all of the SIGs for assisting us in organizing IJET-29 in Osaka. We are grateful to everyone who has given us valuable advice, assistance, and encouraging words during the preparation. We would also like to thank everyone who has told us over the weekend what they liked or didn't like, and where we might have done things differently. Your comments, complaints and criticisms are invaluable if we want to improve, and your advice is greatly appreciated. We hope that the few minor teething problems can be put down as learning experiences, and that whoever organizes future IJETs will learn from our mistakes and make those IJETs even better.

We hope this IJET has made valuable contributions to the futures of translators and interpreters.

Finally, we would like to invite everyone to attend IJET 30 in Cairns next year. We hope to see you all there!